


Reset and Restart

by Iggytheperson



Series: Remember to Save [1]
Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: AU, I dunno if this counts as a crossover or not, I suck at tags, M/M, the digital world is a death trap so daisuke is just constantly save scumming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2018-11-16 07:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11249028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iggytheperson/pseuds/Iggytheperson
Summary: Alternatively, In Which Everyone Dies A Lot.He doesn't know why he has this power, but given how dangerous being a Chosen Child can be, he decides to just be thankful for it.





	1. Truth

Daisuke made a note to himself: never die in a blizzard, it sucks.

Dying sucked in general of course, but as a chosen that stuff was unavoidable. It was a wonder that the original chosen had made it through their first adventure. Oh well, at least this would be an easy fix. All he would have to do was get to the tv quicker.

"What...happened?"

_Or not._ Daisuke thought to himself. _He must've been touching me when that big chunk of ice hit me. This is bad. Really bad._

Ken had found out about Daisuke's powers a few times before, and the results were never good. Experiencing them first hand? This was going to be trouble. He might even have to go back to the save point before this one. He couldn't even remember when that was but it was probably ages ago.

"Where...are we? What on earth..." Right, Ken first, resetting later. But what could he even say? How was he supposed to trick someone, a genius no less, into forgetting that they died? Daisuke didn't have much time left, he could already see the fogginess clearing from Ken's eyes. His mind raced as he tried to think of something, anything that he could say to stop Ken’s inevitable discovery.

But Ken was already staring at the save point, and most likely already figuring that it had something to do with the fact that he wasn't dead. 

"Daisuke, what is that?" he said, looking at Daisuke pointedly. Daisuke averted his eyes, any response he might have had dying in his throat. 

"Daisuke. What. Is. That." Ken repeated, staring him down.

"I..I dunno man." He said lamely, standing up and trying to scoot in front of it.

"Daisuke, you’re a terrible liar. Why don’t you want to tell me the truth?”

"You promise you won't freak out?" Daisuke asked meekly.

"Daisuke, please just tell me I promise I won't freak out" Ken said. Something about the worry in his voice made Daisuke’s heart skip a beat and made him forget what things he was never to say to Ken under any circumstances.

“Um well, I guess you could say that it's a save point." Ken looked at him like he'd just said that Arachnemon was a nice lady.

"You know, like in video games when you die, you go back to the save point."

"Yes I do know that Daisuke, but I also know that this is real life and that when people die they don't just respawn at a checkpoint." 

"Well, me and whoever is touching me when I die do." There were a few moments stillness before Daisuke could start to see the blood draining from Ken's face. That wasn't the thing he should have said. He didn’t know what the right thing to say was but every instinct he had was telling his to pull out his knife and do it over again. Better yet, just destroy the save point and go back to whenever the last save point was and not drag anyone into this ever again. Especially not Ken.

"It doesn’t sound like you found that out recently.” The horror in Ken’s voice was clear and Daisuke felt like throwing up. He’d reset what had to be hundreds of times trying to keep Ken away from the things that could hurt him. He didn’t want to be one of those things. But at this point there wasn’t anything he could say but the truth.

“No, I don’t suppose I did.” Daisuke couldn’t bring himself to look at Ken’s face, but he could see Ken flinch and he felt his stomach knot up even further. What was he doing!? He was supposed to fix everyone’s problems, not make them!

“Why would you…” Ken trailed off, sounding just as lost as Daisuke felt. “How many times have you had to do…this?”

“I think it’s been about 10 today? I don’t keep track of things like that, it’s not good for your health.” Daisuke could see Ken tense up, though this time he wasn’t really sure what he’d said to mess up.

“Today?” The question came out so quietly that Daisuke wasn’t sure if it he’d actually heard it. “Just today? I was asking in terms of your whole life, but your head went to today! How often has this been happening?” Oh, right, people aren’t supposed to be used to dying. Slowly, Daisuke lifted his head. A second later he wished he hadn’t. It’d been a while since he’d last seen Ken make a face like that. It’d been during one of those loops where Chimeramon ate someone. And now he was making it again because of something that he’d said. Why did he always seem to mess up in the absolute worst ways? Oh yeah, because he could fix it. Daisuke turned around and smashed the save point.

“What’s that going to do?” Ken was doing the thing where he doesn’t say what he really wants to.

“Well, without it. I’ll go back to the save point before this one.” His voice shaking, which was bad because right now he was should’ve been sounding normal so that Ken would calm down.

“I think planning for you own death might also be bad for your health, Daisuke.” Ken said, in that tone of voice that makes it sound as though he’s talking to a child, the one he uses when he’s trying to get people to stop doing something he doesn’t like. Daisuke wasn’t sure whether Ken ever noticed this or not, but he sure wasn’t noticing the knife in his hand, so lucky for him. It was also lucky for him that he was facing away from Ken right then, or it might’ve been a bit harder to stab himself through the chest.


	2. Resigned

The first time one sees one of their friends get eaten by a frankenstein of giant deadly monsters, they are taken aback. And so the first time that this happens to Daisuke, he stares almost blankly as his brain struggles to fully process the horror before him. Thankfully, a hunk of debris crushes him a few seconds later, and Daisuke spends three days in the next timeline recuperating before going back and trying again.

By loop 74, he’d gotten a bit more used to both that and the others gruesome methods of carnage this thing enlists. But he’d also never ever hated anything as much as he hated this stupid ugly lump of freak. It was easily the worst thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life. And the worst thing about it? It never did the same thing twice! Even goldfish have some sort of pattern, but not this thing. Oh no, it just had to something completely random every single time and throw Daisuke’s entire plan out the window. How was he supposed to find a safe route to beating this piece of crap if he couldn’t predict it!? Oh, you made sure Miyako wasn’t standing on that one platform where she got crushed by debris last time? Well too bad! It’s going to throw a storage bin at the ceiling this time for no apparent reason at all!

He wanted more than anything to voice all of this, and also throw in a few words towards the monstrosity that he suspected his fellow children wouldn't have recognized. The brain-dead abomination wouldn’t have understood him anyways, but Daisuke didn’t care. He just wanted to scream at this point. 

Instead of that happening, Daisuke unexpectedly found himself being picked off the ground like a ragdoll. Not a good thing to have happen to you. Especially when the thing picking you up was Chimeramon. And of course the dumb thing wasn’t even going to have the decency to make it a quick death since it couldn’t even close its stupid mouth. He was probably going to end up getting dissolved in its stomach or something. Ugh, that sounded painful. Daisuke knew he’d had some deaths that were a lot worse than this but he couldn’t remember when. His brain probably blocked them out or something. Speaking of that, he figured now would likely be a good time to close his eyes before he ended up getting any mental trauma. 

Eugh, giant tongues felt gross. He could feel it swallowing, and was vaguely glad that he hadn’t eaten much that morning as he braced himself for his descent into what had got to be the most disgusting thing ever. What Daisuke hadn’t been expecting to happen was for him to find himself being suspended by something rope-like that was lassoing around his wrist. Hesitantly, he let his eyes open. Was that…the Kaiser’s whip? Well, that was awfully weird, but he certainly wasn’t passing up the chance to get out of this crap death route. He started trying to lift himself up, but the freaky thing was thrashing around like crazy all of a sudden. It unexpectedly threw its head forward and Daisuke slid up onto its tongue. He quickly grabbed onto the now-slack whip, and not a moment later the head flung all the way back. Daisuke looked up and suddenly saw what was making it freak out so much.

There, holding on for dear life to the edges of Chimeramon’s mouth, was the Kaiser. Daisuke decided to be confused about it later, and started pulling himself up the rope again. But just as soon as he’d grabbed higher up on rope, Chimeramon jerked its head forward. Daisuke lost his grip and fell back on his wrist, and saw the Kaiser fall back out of the mouth. He was still holding onto the whip apparently, he could feel it’s grip on his wrist tightening as Ken presumably started dangling in the air. It also seemed that someone told him to let go based on how the Kaiser then started to yell.

“NO! He’s still in there, I can’t leave him!” Daisuke’s confusion was starting to get in the way of his focus. But seriously, why was Ken trying to save him?

“You hear me Motomiya!? I’m going to save you! You’re too stubborn to die like this, get that resigned look of your face!” That…was surprisingly motivating. With renewed courage, he started climbing up again. Wait, what was that glowing? Crap, it was getting an attack ready. Desperately, Daisuke started scrambling for the edge of the mouth. He grabbed it, swing himself over the edge just in time to miss the beam. His fingers however, were now very burned as well as being the only holding him and the Kaiser up. He wasn’t sure whether or not to be thankful when Chimeramon decided to grab the whip in the middle and start raising them up by it. Oh great, it was trying to eat them again. 

“What are you doing, let go of the stupid whip already!” He screamed at Ken, now being level with him. 

“No, he’d just grab it again the second it started to slide!” While it was a good point, it wasn’t one that Daisuke’s fatigued mental state cared about.

“What’s with you? You tried to kill me like, a million times before. So why do you suddenly care so much?” It was counterintuitive to argue against being rescued but Daisuke was tired and afraid and confused and he just didn’t care anymore. 

“What’s with me? More like what’s with you! Just giving up and letting yourself be killed without so much as a plea for help, like you’ve lost all hope or something. Where did the insufferable brat who never knew when to quit go, Motomiya?” Why did the Kaiser have to be so right? Now he had to pull himself together and keep trying even when knowing there was nothing that he could do. Daisuke punched Ken’s wrist, forcing him to let go as he yanked his other arm down as hard as he could. It worked, now they were plummeting towards the ground. Perfect.

“Sticky Net!” Wait, Wormmon wasn’t dead yet? Well at least one thing didn’t go terribly this time round. Wow, make that two things, the freakshow was flying off.

“Ken-chan! I’m so glad!” Wormmon was clinging to Ken with tears in his eyes.

“You’re back to your old self again!” Hold up, did that mean that this loop was a success? How’d that happen? Like, almost everyone died. Was this a trap? It seemed too good to be true. Was he going to follow this route and then find out after months and months of saves that he needed everyone after all? Well, too bad fate! He already translated the entire ancient manual thingy, and he knew how to split a timeline! One of him would go try and save everyone, and the other would stay here, and if it turned out they couldn’t save the digital world, they wouldn’t even have to worry because they’d just be some offshoot timeline anyways. Daisuke quickly started preparing.

“…What are you doing?” Watching Daisuke make a weird sand pile was irking Ken apparently. 

“Save to File 2” Daisuke recited, ignoring Ken. The desert fell away from him, and he was back at the last save point. He briefly sighed before heading back to where the others were sleeping.

~+~

“What the heck was that all about?” Ken yelled, clearly frustrated beyond belief at Daisuke continuously weird behavior

“It’s nothing important, let’s just get out of here already.” Daisuke said, waving it off. And the three of them headed out.


	3. Quiet

Is it really cheating if a ghost tells you the answers?

It’s not Daisuke’s fault that the ghost keeps telling him what cards to play, right? Besides, it must get pretty boring being stuck in your apartment all day when nobody can see you, so it’s actually a good thing for him to let the guy have some fun. Or something like that. 

Ken’s older brother, huh? Although it looks like Ken might be taller than him now. The guy had figured out that Daisuke could see him pretty quickly, not that he’d been subtle about it. He’d glanced at him a few times, enough to make the guy uneasy. Then when Ken had said that the photo was of his brother he’d straight up turned and looked at him. That’d gotten an undignified response of “Holy crap, you really *can* see me!” followed by a long period of uncomfortable staring. Not a surprise, seeing as he’d most likely gone unnoticed by everyone for years now. He’d eventually gotten over it though, and had since taken to helping him win go fish.

“Ask blondie for a jack” Sure, why not?

Apparently, he didn’t have one, which left Daisuke very confused as the ghost floating above him laughed. That is, until Ken asked him for his jack. He looked over at Ken’s pile as he handed him the jack and suddenly understood. He didn’t get how, but Osamu or whoever had somehow managed to put Ken in the lead. Huh. 

Ok, he could roll with that. And so he continued to listen to the ghost’s unhelpful advice, through every card game they played, and Ken continued to win, and Miyako continued to be bad at this.

“Doubt! Doubt, doubt, doubt!” Very, very bad at this. Too bad for her. Everyone laughed, and for once Ken was included in that everyone. It was then that Daisuke found out that Ken’s laugh was the cutest thing in under the sun. Wait, no that blush was. He was so distracted by trying to slow down his heart rate that he didn’t notice the stunned look on the ghost’s face until he said something. 

“I…can’t even remember the last time I saw him look that happy.” The ghost stared at the ground as he said this, and Daisuke thought it looked as though he felt guilty about something. It was the way he looked the first time he’d seen him. He contemplated it as he and Ken rode across the city on Lighdramon.

It’d been after Ken had run away to the digital world. He’d seen Ken’s mother on tv crying her eyes out when a ghost had suddenly popped into the frame. Trying quite desperately to get her attention. 

“Mom, mom, it’s Ken, he came back for something! Mom, he’s in his room! Hurry before he leaves, mom! Mom! MOM!” the ghost flailed around desperately to no avail. It would have been kind of funny if it weren’t so depressing. The poor ghost had tears in his eyes by the time he gave up. He drooped as he stared at the floor with the same expression Daisuke had just now seen. 

“Is this how Ken used to feel?” The whisper had been almost too quiet to be heard.

“Is this my fault?” The ghost was in full tears when he floated off screen. 

He figured it’d be best to never, ever mention it to Ken.

Daisuke was having a sleepover at the Ichijouji’s two weeks after they’d defeated Belialvamdemon. Ken was sleeping like an angel and Daisuke would have been if not for the ghost floating over him and staring at him.

“What do you want?” He grumbled, irritation and tiredness clear in his voice. The ghost failed to care, apparently.

“To talk to the only person in years who’s been able to see me.” In a more well-rested state of mind, he might’ve sympathized. Right now, he rolled over and pulled the futon cover over his head.

“You can’t go to sleep. I’ll keep you up all night” He saw who Ken got the Kaiser from now.

“Shut up before I exorcise you” Hopefully this would work.

“Wait, you can do that?” No, he was bluffing.

“Yes, now shut up already” _Please fall for it, please fall for it._ he chanted internally.

“I think you’re bluffing” _God dammit._ He thought, sitting up.

“Ugh, screw it, you got me. Now what do you want to talk about at this lovely hour?” He glared daggers but it didn’t do him much good in the dark.

“Well first off, how can you see me?” Ok, yeah, that one was a given. Though he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to spill his whole deal where Ken, Leafmon and Chibimon could easily hear.

“Certain people can” He doubted that was going to cut it but you couldn’t blame him for trying.

“And those certain people are?” Yeah, that’s what he was expecting.

“Magic people” He whispered, praying that Chibimon wouldn’t suddenly decide to wake up and decide to go to the bathroom.

“Magic people, you say” He nodded. 

“And you are magic how, exactly?” Oh for the love of god why.

“Um…” He stared up at Ken’s bunk, as if that would somehow keep him pinned down.

“I’m…immortal. And you’re going to accept that answer because I’m not about to go into any further detail within earshot of Ken. Now can I go to sleep before he wakes up and asks me why I’m talking to thin air?” He was paranoid, he knew that. But he also knew that said paranoia was completely warranted, so he didn’t care.

“No, I haven’t talked to anyone in years and I still have questions.” There was just no pleasing this guy.

“First off, is there anything that I can actually do as a ghost besides float through things and not be seen by anyone, ever?” Well at least no more questions with answers that’d give Ken a panic attack.

“Um, I think some strong ones are able to possess things. Like, put their body in an object and move it around. Also I think there are sometimes extra powerful ones who normal people can see.”

“Ok then, I guess.” He abides.

“There’s something else that’s really starting to bug me too.” His face turns very sullen as he says this.

“I’m starting to forget things. Like, really important things. I can’t remember things like when Ken’s birthday is, or where mom works…I don’t even remember how long it’s been since I died! What’s happening to me? What’s happening to me? Am I going to forget everything? I’m scared!” He’s getting more and more panicked and his talking is turning into shaky sniveling.

“I’ve heard that, yes, if a ghost lingers without passing on for too long, that they’ll forget everything from their past life.” There’s no point in lying to him.

“WHAT?!” He cries, and Daisuke cringes before realizing that Ken won’t hear.

“Th-then what do I do? How do I pass on?” 

“I don’t know” he replies lamely.

“Why don’t you? Help me, come on man! I can’t…” He doesn’t finish, just breaks off into more tears.

“I am literally the worst person to ask about this ok! Being a ghost isn’t exactly something I’m concerned about. Nor is it ever going to be.” Though he’s vaguely wondered once or twice now about the fate of his world-saving peers.

“You’re just going to have to figure it out yourself ok? I’m sorry but I really can’t help you on this one” Daisuke finishes, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

“...No, it’s fine. That’s reasonable. You can go ahead and sleep now...” He tries to sound reassuring but fails as he stares at the ground gloomily. There’s not much Daisuke can do but lay down and pull the covers up.

“Oh, and one last thing.” He hears behind him.

“Yeah?” He mumbles groggily.

“Thanks for making him happy.”


	4. Sayonara

Daisuke awoke three days after the nightmare that was Chimeramon with an odd, empty feeling in his chest. Something wasn’t right. Something in him felt…missing. Chibimon looked at him with concern as he ate breakfast without as much as a word. The disconcerting hole in his chest carried him out of the apartment. His gut told him to leave Chibimon behind, for whatever reason. 

His instincts thus carried him all the way to Ken’s apartment in Tamachi. Daisuke got increasingly anxious as he walked up the stairs. He didn’t want something to have happened to Ken. Ken was nice.

So was his mother, who let him in immediately upon hearing that he was Ken’s friend. Daisuke had high hopes that that would eventually become the truth. When he got to Ken’s door, though, he couldn’t quite bring himself to knock on it. What if something really had happened? What if something hadn’t? How would he explain his sudden drop in to Ken? That he had just had some gut feeling to check on him? That wouldn’t fly at all. Maybe he could just say he’d been worried because he hadn’t seen Ken in the digital world since the battle…Yeah, that could work. Gulping down his butterflies, he rapped on the door.

No answer. He tried again, with the same result.

“Ken? It’s me, Daisuke…uhh, I’m coming in ok?” Steeling himself, he grabbed the handle and swung the door open. 

Daisuke didn’t wait a second before resetting.

He would never accept that route. It was, without a doubt, the absolute worst possible route. He couldn’t ever possibly accept something like that. Ken didn’t deserve that. Not ever. He would definitely find a way to stop it. He had to.

“Daisuke? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Giant, worried eyes stared up at him, as he's returned to the morning before disaster struck. Daisuke tries to respond, but the only thing that comes out of his throat is choked sobbing. Is one day of peace all it takes to soften him into this mess? Two days ago, he could stay completely composed after having his head ripped off. And now he's having a meltdown in front of his apartment, sitting over a weird pile of dirt and attracting attention.

“Daisuke, what happened?” Chibimon asks, getting increasingly worried the longer that Daisuke remains a sobbing mess. Daisuke dully realizes that now Chibimon might tell someone about his breakdown and screw up the continuity. So once he’s sure he’s cried every tear, out comes his trusted knife.

He numbly goes through the motions of his ridiculous ‘make Veemon digivolve’ spectacle, drops his partner off at home, and promptly rushes to Tamachi. When he makes it through to Ken’s room, his breath catches in his throat. It takes him a while to remind himself that it’ll be fine to go in at this point in time. Ken is lying on his bed when Daisuke enters, with one arm dangling over the edge and his head buried in the other. He’s shaking. Crying, Daisuke realizes as he tiptoes over. Ken doesn’t even seem to notice him. That is, until Daisuke reaches out and takes the limp hand in his own. Ken jerks in surprise, but doesn’t try to remove his hand from Daisuke’s. Ken’s head rises up to look over at him. His eyes widen upon seeing his visitor.

“Why are….you here?” He whispers, puffy eyes staring at Daisuke in confusion.

“I was worried about you…” Daisuke replies softly, and he feels all of the emotions from that morning that he’d attempted to snuff out creeping up on him again.

“Why….?” Ken’s question is so quiet that Daisuke can barely even hear it at all.

“Why?!” Ken repeats louder as his tears start up again.

“I’m awful! Why would you worry about someone like me?! I’m a monster!” He cries. Daisuke somehow feels himself getting angry.

“You are not a monster! Don’t say that!” He yells.

“Yes I am! I’m a horrible p-person and you should h-hate me! Why are you so b-being nice to me!?” Ken’s crying is getting in the way of his speech as it worsens, to the point where it’s not even clear what he’s saying anymore. Daisuke gets the point anyways.

“Because you aren’t any of those things at all! You’re a good person, I know that you are!” Now he’s crying too. Because all he wants, more than anything, is to be able to find the right words to convince Ken that he’s great. But he can’t. Because as luck would have it, even though Ken’s been a good person a hundred times, those hundred times don’t exist anymore and he can’t just remind Ken about all the good he’s done because as far as Ken is concerned it never happened.

“No I’m not! How can you even say that? I was so horrible to you!” Ken cries. A million different answers come to mind but Daisuke can’t say any of them. And it hurts. So. Much. 

Daisuke wants to scream. Scream that a bad person wouldn’t have run in front of Chimeramon to protect Miyako. That a bad person wouldn’t have come down to the bottom of the ocean to try and save his enemies from suffocation. It didn’t even matter that he hadn’t succeeded. Because a monster wouldn’t have cared. An awful person wouldn’t scream or start to cry when half of the enemy team got wiped out. Daisuke wants to scream. He collapses onto his knees and starts to cry.

He doesn’t hear Ken come down the ladder and get on his knees beside him, so Daisuke flinches when the other boy reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Ken immediately recoils, but Daisuke reaches out and grabs it again.

“You’re a kind person…Why can’t you see that dammit!?” Ken is startled when the quiet statement switches over to a wretched cry. He has no idea how to respond, trying instead to put his arms around the miserable, shaking form of the boy before him.

“I don’t understand why you would think that but….thank you” Ken mumbles. After a few moments of silence, the other boy stands up. Ken stands up next to him as Daisuke turns to face him. Suddenly, Daisuke grabs the other boy’s shoulder and looks him in the eyes with an almost alarming seriousness.

“You aren’t a monster.” Daisuke states this as firmly as possible, and then turns and leaves Ken’s room. He’s too worn out to notice Ken’s mom saying something to him as he walks out of the apartment. Too wrapped up in his thoughts, trying to find the right string of words that would convince Ken of what he knows to be true. As though the carpet could tell him how to prove that Ken is good. Because Ken is good. It's one of the only things Daisuke is sure of anymore. Sure, Ken was a dumbass who’d thought that digimon weren’t real or something, but nothing about that made him bad. If Daisuke hadn’t ever encountered them in Odaiba all those years ago, he might have believed the same. So Ken wasn’t evil. He just had to find the right way to convince Ken of that.

The next morning, the same indescribable empty feeling was sitting inside him again. Daisuke almost wishes he believed in a god so he could pray that the feeling didn’t mean what he thought it did. The trip to Tamachi is almost auto-pilot now. He’d left in such a hurry last night that Mrs.Ichijouji completely buys the excuse that he and Ken had gotten into a fight and that he’d come to apologize. Once again he finds himself pausing in front of Ken’s door. Because maybe it’s like that cat that Miyako was talking about, that Ken’s door was the lid of the box and if he didn’t open it, then everything would be fine. But even if he didn’t open the box, Mrs.Ichijouji would have to eventually. He should save her the grief of seeing her dead cat. Daisuke finishes his idiotic mental rant and anxiously opens the door.

Once again, Ken Ichijouji’s lifeless body hangs from the ceiling.

Daisuke is divided between wanting to throw up and wanting to cry. A screaming mantra of whys go off in the back of his head while the systematic, emotionless part of his brain that carried him through the Chimeramon episode a hundred times makes a mental note. 

Ken has blood on his fingertips.

He doesn’t remember seeing that before, although he hurried out so quickly before that he might not have noticed it. He doesn’t get any more time to analyze the issue, though, because Mrs.Ichijouji starts screaming behind him. Time to start over.

Luckily, he doesn’t cry in front of Chibimon this time. He does, however, ask the little guy to go to school without him and tell the others that Daisuke was going on a family outing today, and that it had slipped Daisuke’s mind until just this morning. 

“If it’s that important to you, then don’t worry Daisuke, you can count on me!” Chibimon told him, and Daisuke knew that he could. If there was anything he trusted Chibimon to be able to do for him, it was to provide a cover story while Daisuke did a reconnaissance loop.

So Daisuke swiftly hurried over to Tamachi, and proceeded to break into the Ichijouji’s apartment. It bugged him that he had to do something so shady, but if it meant he didn’t have to see that awful scene again, he would honestly be up to do anything.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he discovers that the Ichijouji’s lock isn’t particularly noisy. The Mr. and Mrs. have already left for the day, leaving Daisuke with leisure to find a good hiding spot. He chooses to take a seat against the corner wall outside of Ken’s room. He expects that Ken will eventually have to come out go to the bathroom or eat or something. He's hoping that it would be the former, giving him more time to sneak under Ken’s desk. 

But then the whole day goes by without Ken even once leaving his room. Daisuke is alerted to this bizarre fact by the sound of a ken turning in the apartment’s door. It's a good thing Daisuke excels at spur of the moment plans. And slipping quietly in people’s bedrooms. What Daisuke hadn’t been expecting to see upon entering the room was an open digital gate on Ken’s computer. Confused, but not wanting to tamper with it when Ken could come back at any second, Daisuke slips under the desk and resumes patiently waiting. Eventually, Ken comes home, collapsing onto the floor unceremoniously as Daisuke mentally marks the time down as six thirty. Ken limps over to climb the ladder. It's then that Daisuke notices an injury on Ken's lower leg. There's a scrape on the pants, but it doesn’t look like it could be anything serious. 

Ken flops into bed and begins to cry. It takes every ounce of Daisuke’s willpower to resist the tug that pulls him to stand up and take the other boy’s hand again. _But it's pointless_ he dismally reasons with himself. Nothing he could say would be of any help. So he sits there feeling useless and he listens as Ken cries himself to sleep.

Daisuke waits an hour after Ken drifts off to get up and turn on the computer. The gate wasn’t anywhere in particular, just some random place in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t seem like Ken had really cared where he was going. Daisuke could use that. He wasn’t sure how yet, though. So he tries changing around where the gate leads to. After a while, he comes to a gate in the middle of a forest, where he could see what looked like…giant play blocks in the distance. Maybe this was that…Village of Beginnings or whatever, that Takeru had talked about. Wait then…Ken could find Wormmon there! Bingo! Daisuke memorizes the coordinates and shut off the computer. He spends the rest of the night trying to plan out when he could sneak into Ken’s room in the next loop. He has a plan devised by the time Ken crawled out of bed the next morning.

Every part of Daisuke started screaming for him to reset when Ken pulls a rope out of his closet. He can’t move. His body refuses to. Why? Daisuke wants to move, why wouldn’t he move he doesn’t want to see this didn’t want to see this please no please no move _move MOVE._

He doesn’t move.

He's still in place even as the last of Ken's muscles cease to twitch.

There isn’t any blood on Ken’s fingertips.

An awful feeling hits Daisuke and he’s not sure if it’s from a sudden realization or from the same thing he’d last felt two days ago. This morning? He doesn’t know how to label things anymore.

He always knows how to go back, though.

It's a dull comfort that he'd set up two save points after beating Chimeramon. Otherwise, Daisuke might’ve imploded trying to figure out how to get the night after without going through his greatest source of stress all over again. He breaks into the Ichijouji’s apartment once again and glances pensively up at Ken’s bunk every so often as he changes around the coordinates to the baby village. He slips out once more without issue and sighs with relief as he reassures himself that everything is going to be alright.

He wakes up two days later and smiles when nothing feels missing.


	5. Sometimes

Sometimes, Daisuke will look at the calendar and see that today is the big group reunion and think that today is the day he’ll tell everyone. Sometimes, when they get home, Ken will tell him that he thought Daisuke seemed a bit off at the party and ask him if there’s anything that he wants to talk about. Ken will always be there for him no matter what and Daisuke can tell him anything. He knows that, right? Sometimes, he’ll open his mouth to tell the truth and suddenly he swears he can see a rope in the closet even though he checks it every day and the truth crawls back into his throat with an “I’m fine” and a smile as he tries to repress the urge to vomit.

Sometimes, when Ken is in another room, Daisuke will call out to him and not get a response. Ken is apparently very tired of Daisuke bursting into the room whenever Ken doesn’t hear him calling. Daisuke will take Ken’s annoyance any day, he just wants to know Ken is safe. Ken’s also annoyed about Daisuke’s irrational hatred of long cords. Chibimon isn’t going to get strangled in them, Daisuke, he barely has a neck. Daisuke always says “I know” and it makes Ken wonder if that’s not the real reason Daisuke doesn’t want them around.

In the time since he and Daisuke moved in together, he’s noticed that for a digidestined of courage, Daisuke has a surprising amount of paranoia about a lot of weird things. Daisuke hates earthquakes, building demolition shows and anything pertaining to the destruction of large objects with a vehement passion. He’s also apparently terrified of fire, which strikes Ken as being especially odd, given how much time they’ve spent around giant fire breathing creatures. Ken doesn’t like the way that Daisuke goes quiet whenever he tries to prod him about these things, and slowly, Ken has learned to stop asking. Daisuke can tell him later, when he’s ready. Ken is sure that one day he’ll be ready.

Daisuke isn’t. You’d think that “It’s a miracle we survived back then” would be a great segway into explaining that miracle but instead his throat feels like it has a razor lodged in it every time someone says they’re so happy they all got to have such a fun adventure together. It’s like he’s not even living in the same world as them. That thought alone hurts because he loves them all, went through everything that he did for their sake. And yet even though he’s been with them for what feels like a lifetime, he feels like he hasn’t lived the same lives that they have. And the timer ticks down, closer and closer to the moment when he loses them forever and yet he doesn’t get any closer to telling them the truth. The voice of someone he doesn’t remember echoes through his head and reminds him of the fact that he was never among them to begin with. 

“Blessed are those with finite lifespans. Their lives are precious because they are fleeting, like beautiful flowers. Immortals are plastic flowers. Cheap, everlasting imitations that could never compare to the real thing. “

He doesn’t recall the person who told him that. He thinks it might’ve upset him at the time. It doesn’t anymore, because it’s true, if ridiculously preachy. They’re precious beyond even his own understanding and he’ll die as many times as he needs to for them. He realized that a long time ago. He doesn’t understand why it feels like he’s bleeding.

He’s broken out of his little world by Takeru tapping him on the shoulder, pointing over to an amusingly drunk Iori attempting to sing the alphabet backwards. Daisuke decides to put less investment in confusing, painful feelings that don’t make sense and instead enjoy his time with his friends. He avoids the alcohol everyone seems hellbent on getting him to drink. He’s less inhibited with his secrets when he’s drunk, he’s found.

Sometimes he wakes up in the morning with an overwhelming urge to scream. It isn’t nightmares, he trained himself not to scream from those a long time ago. It’s sometimes hard with the ones about Ken, though. Nonetheless, even on a one-in-million morning where he’s had a decent sleep the night before, he can wake up and find that he needs to suppress the urge to scream. He has a trick for this though. He represses his emotions all day, and then, at the soonest opportunity, he drives down to a nice lake he knows of where not many people visit. It also just so happens that the sound of him shouting everything he’s kept bottled up for 25 years doesn’t carry that much. And if in some odd happenstance, somebody is around to hear…well, he’ll always have his knife.

One day though, suicide won’t be able to fix all his problems. Daisuke isn’t really sure how he’s going to deal with that. He’s lost his friends so many times that he can’t really process the idea of them being irreversibly gone. How will he even know when the time comes? What if they think someone died of old age, and then years later it turns out it was a brain tumor and Daisuke could’ve saved them and it’s going to be all his fault because he couldn’t do anything and he’s useless and someone better should’ve been the one to be in charge of keeping everyone alive because he’s a good for nothing waste of space who can’t even do his one job right.

Daisuke tells himself to take a step back and calm the fuck down. Ken’s going to be home in a minute and he’s not going to want to see Daisuke pacing around like a freak also Chibimon looks really concerned.

“I’m ok buddy.” He tells Chibimon lamely. His partner isn’t even mildly convinced. 

Ken comes through the door looking exhausted and in need of a hug, which Daisuke is glad to provide. He apologizes for not having dinner started and Ken tells him that’s fine and that he loves him and for a second Daisuke forgets why he’d been such a mess before. What was it again? Oh right, Ken was going to die.

Daisuke suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be making dinner. To make up for spacing out to a degree that was clearly making Ken concerned, Daisuke started putting together his favorite foods. 

Knives were one of the only deadly everyday things that Daisuke had no objection to having around. They simply weren’t something that he had reason to be afraid of. Knives didn’t cause any problems. As a matter of fact, they fixed them. Knives and Kaisers are the only potentially threatening things worth trusting. He’d told Ken that once…He didn’t say it in the next loop. Ken knew what a joke was now…maybe he could try telling it again? No, his last save was too long ago for it to be worth the trouble. Then dinner was ready, and Ken’s face lit up the whole room when he saw his favorite foods on the table. 

Sometimes, Ken’s smile was bright enough to shut up the darker parts of Daisuke’s head for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put Daisuke through some traumatizing shit, and will continue to do so even more, and so I thought it would be good to write a chapter dedicated to the psychological affects of going through all of that without ever being able to ask anyone for help or talk about his problems.
> 
> This probably goes without saying given that it's a daiken fic but this fic's epilogue is most certainly non-canon compliant. This would be the case even without the daiken though, as Daisuke vetoed having kids the second he found out his powers were hereditary.


	6. Fears

Sometimes, Ken got the distinct feeling that something was wrong. It only happened every so often, but sometimes he would look at Daisuke and he would feel something...off. He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but it was deeply unsettling.

This often occurred when they met up with the others for a group get together, and everyone would reminisce about the good old days of childhood world-saving. He would look over and see Daisuke smiling. Knuckles white with how tight his fists were clenched, but smiling. Maybe Ken was being paranoid and looking too deeply into nothing, or maybe Daisuke wasn’t saying what he really wanted to whenever he spoke at those meet ups. Daisuke would’ve told him if something was wrong though, right? Ken chalked it up to an overactive imagination and tried to ignore it.

Weeks turned into months and Ken kept seeing the same things over and over. Ken was starting to wonder if maybe they had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed them before. The others sure didn’t. This was starting to bother him a lot.

One time, he decided to confront Daisuke about the issue. Daisuke came home from work that day, as usual, and Ken asked Daisuke to come sit with him on the couch. He told Daisuke he was worried about him, about all the little things he’d been noticing, and asked him what was wrong. That Daisuke could tell him anything.

“I’m fine” was the reply he got, and the face accompanying it screamed of how much Daisuke wanted Ken to believe that. Unfortunately for Daisuke, the response had sounded too dead and empty for Ken to ever believe it. It wasn’t a tone that he’d ever heard Daisuke use before, and yet it somehow had some vague, déjà-vu familiarity to it that chilled Ken to the core. Why did it seem like he’d heard it before? He couldn’t, shouldn’t have ever heard Daisuke sounding so...hopeless. And yet something about it still seemed familiar to Ken and it made his stomach churn.

No, no Daisuke wasn’t fine. And he wouldn’t drop the issue until Daisuke told him what was wrong. He told Daisuke as much. 

The look Daisuke gave him put his worries into overdrive. Daisuke expression was…loving, but pitying. Resigned. Like…Daisuke loved him for trying, but knew there was nothing Ken could do to help. This realization settled itself in the back of Ken’s head, and when it did, Ken felt an odd anger that he hadn’t expected to be a part of this discussion.

“How can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong!?” He yelled, outlandish frustration pouring out of him in a single sentence. A sentence that hung in the air for a few seconds, giving Ken time to worry about the consequences of his actions before Daisuke’s response came in the form of…crying. Ken wasn’t sure if this was a horrible thing or if he had gotten somewhere, but Daisuke had abruptly started sobbing. Ken was very confused about this sudden turn of events and fumbled uselessly as Daisuke’s crying grew more and more pained with every second, like a wall crumbling to the ground. Ken was completely and utterly horrified by the suffering that was painfully clear in Daisuke’s voice. Why? Why hadn’t he said anything? What was hurting him this much and why didn’t he trust Ken to help him? Why? Ken didn’t understand at all. 

He wrapped his arms around Daisuke, making some sort of vague attempt at comfort while his confusion spun his head around in circles. Daisuke eventually quiets down a little bit, and Ken tries asking him why again. Daisuke just starts crying harder again, shaking his head into Ken’s shoulder. 

Daisuke’s crying slows down again a few minutes later, and this time, Ken says nothing. After a while, Daisuke lifts himself off of Ken, staring hard at Ken’s face, like he’s thinking. Ken doesn’t dare to say anything, hoping that maybe Daisuke is about to tell him what’s wrong. Daisuke instead gets up off the couch, raising up one finger in a “wait” motion before turning around and walking to the bathroom.

Maybe…he’s getting something? Ken tries to convince himself of that, but something still feels unsettling and off and Ken just can’t make the feeling go away. Then he hears an odd sound from the bathroom. Then he hears a crash. Ken jumps up and is in front of the bathroom before his brain even catches up with body. He swings open the door. Daisuke is lying on the floor. There’s a knife next to him. There’s red…a puddle of red. And then everything fades to black.

~+~

One time, he decided to confront Daisuke about the issue. He sat on the couch, intending to sit Daisuke down with him when he got home. Daisuke came home from work that day, bounding through the door and babbling about what an amazing day he’d had. His face was glowing with joy and Ken decided to bring it up another time.

Daisuke ended up having such an amazing and joyful week that the intervention faded from Ken’s mind. Two weeks later, they met up with Hikari and Miyako for lunch and all of Ken’s worries came flooding back. Tomorrow, surely, he would talk to Daisuke about it.

The next day, Daisuke once again came to him squealing about his great day. He once again remained in a complete state of bliss until Ken’s suspicions disappeared.

This happened again and again for three months before it occurred to Ken that Daisuke might be tricking him. No, that was ridiculous. There’s no way that Daisuke could know what he was thinking, that was impossible….right? But it kept happening. He would decide that today would be the day he’d confront Daisuke, and the same thing would happen. It didn’t happen any other time, only when Ken had decided to talk to him. But it was impossible for Daisuke to know something like that…could it really just be a coincidence? Ken was at a loss.

Looking up at the clock, he wondered if Daisuke would be home from his trip soon. Daisuke went out sometimes, though there didn’t seem to be any pattern as to when. He never said where he went, but Daisuke always looked happier when he got back, so Ken had never commented on it. Daisuke had been doing so for as long as they’d been living together and probably longer, so he’d never really thought to question it. Should he be questioning it? 

An idea formed in the back of his head. He could follow Daisuke and then get some sort of clue as to what was going on. This idea…conflicted with Ken’s morals. He really didn’t want to invade Daisuke’s privacy like that. Why did he even doubt Daisuke so much in the first place? Relationships were supposed to be built on trust, and here he was accusing Daisuke of mind reading! All those things were probably just coincidences, he was blowing things out of proportion, if Daisuke had a problem he wanted to talk about then he would’ve told Ken by now!...Is what Ken tried to convince himself, but doubt still pulled at him.

It couldn’t just be a coincidence.

Against his better judgment, Ken finds himself following after Daisuke the next time he says that he’ll be going out for a little bit. It’s harder than Ken would’ve imagined. Not only is Daisuke in an uncanny hurry, he keeps looking around. Daisuke doesn’t seem to be all that concerned though, which strikes Ken as rather frightening, given how the other keeps glancing all around him as though he thinks he’s being followed. Maybe…he knows Ken’s following him? Maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem all that scared, since he thinks that it’s Ken following him. But how would he have even figured that out to begin with? Ugh, this was all so confusing. It was making Ken’s head spin.

So was trying to keep up with Daisuke. He kept moving so quickly, which was very perplexing, because he hadn’t seemed at all that hurried when he’d said goodbye to Ken. Ken even ended up losing track of him a few times. He thanked his lucky stars that Daisuke had taken his digivice with him. Why had he though? Was he going to the digital world? Maybe he had to go talk to Veemon about something, but didn’t want to tell Ken for whatever reason? Wait, shit, Daisuke was taking the car. Crap, what now?

With no time left to think of a better option, Ken runs to the other side of the building and grabs his bike. From there, he almost breaks his legs trying to keep up with Daisuke. He followed the ever-separating red blips on his digivice as fast as he can, barely paying attention to his surroundings. The red dot abruptly stops for a while, finally giving Ken the time to catch up a bit, before it starts up again at a significantly slower pace. 

Ken soon catches up to the sudden stop and finds himself in a parking lot, completely deserted aside from their own car sitting off near the entrance to…a lake? He looks down at his digivice and sees that Daisuke has stopped a short distance away, seemingly having gone down the lake trail. Ken…is almost nervous, for some reason. This was a bad idea. He’s invading Daisuke’s privacy, he should turn around right now and go home. But no, something keeps him from turning around, something feels like it’s pulling him in Daisuke’s direction, as though he absolutely has to do this now or else he’ll miss his chance. Chance for…what? Ken isn’t sure, but he finds himself wandering in the direction of the red dot anyways. He gets closer. He hears screaming. Suddenly scared, he finds himself running, but ends up stopping just short of a clearing when he sees Daisuke. Daisuke…doesn’t seem to be in any danger, like Ken had initial feared when he heard *screaming* of all things. He hadn’t been able to make anything out of them before, but now that he was closer, it was clear that Daisuke was shouting something coherent.

Is he…venting, or something? What was going on? Ken ducked behind a nearby tree as he tried to figure out what message Daisuke was attempting to send to the lake. 

Ken listened, and heard the truth.

He almost wishes he hadn’t. It’s so unbelievably horrible…How? Why? How…how could something so horrific happen? And why, why on earth hadn’t Daisuke said anything? For years! For as long as they’d even known each other! 

Oh god, Chimeramon. Ken felt like his heart was being ripped out when Daisuke’s screaming tangents started focusing on Chimeramon. Hundreds of times...? He’d...watched them all die? 

Every negative thought he’d had before he’d found some ground to stand on came flooding back up. He felt awful. How had Daisuke ever forgiven him…He’d killed him! He’d killed his friends! How!?   
Ken didn’t realize he was crying until after Daisuke’s broken rant had stopped. He pulled himself further into hiding and tried to wipe away tears that were still coming out as Daisuke’s footsteps started coming in his direction. He looked up as Daisuke passed and saw a face that made anything he might’ve wanted to say curl up and die in his throat. Daisuke looked like broken china doll. Ken didn’t have words to describe it.

Instead, for whatever reason, he found himself quietly moving up behind Daisuke. Then, he pulled Daisuke into a hug.

The flinch that rang through Daisuke’s body frightened Ken immensely. So did the way that Daisuke had suddenly gone deathly still.

“It’s me.” Ken muttered. This had the opposite effect than he had intended, and Daisuke flinched so hard that Ken was worried he might’ve broken something. Daisuke was shaking now, slowly turning his head around to look at Ken with eyes wide as saucers and so full of fear that Ken’s grip fails and he let’s go. Why did he look so afraid? He looked like a cornered animal, stumbling backwards and digging through his pockets like the world depended on it. He pulls his hand out and it takes a moment for Ken to register that Daisuke is holding a knife. 

That moment almost costs Ken everything when Daisuke attempts to stab himself through the chest. He’s glad that his instincts work faster than any other part of him, or else he might’ve not been able to grab Daisuke’s arm in time. When his brain does catch up, he’s terrified. Daisuke is struggling so hard that Ken has to grab his arm with both hands. Daisuke has a wild look in his eyes, like he isn’t really there, isn’t thinking this through. Ken begs, pleads for Daisuke to please stop. He doesn’t have to do this, he and Ken can work this out together somehow so please, please stop. He thinks he might be crying again.

“Let go of me!” Daisuke screams. It’s an awful, bleeding cry with enough energy put into it that Daisuke’s death grip weakens, just a little bit, and it’s enough for Ken to be able to snatch the knife and chuck it. 

Daisuke’s frighteningly animal behavior seems to kick into overdrive then, all coherency seeming to disappear as he attempts to scramble after the knife like it’s his lifeline. His panic doesn’t let him see a rock in front of him, and he brutally slams against the ground. Ken doesn’t waste any time pinning him down. Daisuke doesn’t like this turn of events all that much. 

Ken didn’t know Daisuke was this strong. He doesn’t think he’d be able to keep him pinned if Daisuke was actively hitting him. Ken distantly wonders why he isn’t. Daisuke’s brain has barely seemed functional in the past minutes, running on instincts alone…and yet Daisuke hadn’t made any move to actually fight him. Was he too focused on the knife to think of that? No, that didn’t make sense. Fighting back would be a normal instinct, one that Daisuke should be displaying if he’s really that far gone. And yet he hadn’t lifted a finger against Ken yet. This confused Ken immensely. Daisuke clearly wasn’t thinking straight, that much was blatantly obvious. If Ken didn’t know any better, he wouldn’t even believe this person was Daisuke. The wild look in his eyes seemed almost inhuman to Ken. It scared him. 

And that’s when it happened. Daisuke finally hit him.

Daisuke elbowed him in the gut, and between the confusion and the pain, because god that hurt, Daisuke managed to get out from under Ken. Daisuke was on his feet and moving in a second. Ken got as far as standing up before Daisuke had the knife in his hands again. He aims for his neck this time, and there’s a scream as Ken tries to reach him. Ken doesn’t realize that the scream came from him until Daisuke’s body falls to the ground. A mantra of “Oh god why” rings through Ken’s head as the world around him seems to fade away.

~+~

Ken contemplates following him. He never gets the chance to. For whatever reason, Daisuke’s outings completely stop. Whenever Daisuke goes out, Ken is completely sure of where he’s going. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Something had to be going on, and Ken was going to find out what it was. But whenever the thought of bringing it up crossed Ken’s mind, something came up and he would forget. The little things he’d thought he’d been noticing slowly stop, one by one, until Ken wonders if maybe it was just his imagination all along after all. He was just being paranoid this whole time. Daisuke was fine, there was nothing for Ken to be so worried about. He should just forget about it, stop stressing out over nothing and enjoy the get-togethers for once without letting his ridiculous fears ruin it for him.

And so, Ken forgets.


	7. Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cooldown? A slightly softer chapter before we head back to plotville. At any rate, we'll be ditching the epilogue for a while.

They’re running out of air. Iori hasn’t come back yet. Why hasn’t he come back yet? Daisuke is trying to think of anything he could change next time, but nothing comes to mind. He hopes that it doesn’t have to be some weird butterfly effect. He doesn’t remember ever having suffocated before, but it can’t possibly be very quick. He doesn’t want to get stuck doing that over and over again. Miyako yells that she sees something, and Daisuke rushes over in the hopes of seeing a savior. 

He sees the Kaiser, in a Mechanorimon. With another Mechanorimon beside him? Everyone was huddled around the window now, starting to debate what on earth could be happening. Nobody had said anything remotely plausible by the time the Kaiser came to a stop in front of the window. He can’t tell for sure what the Kaiser is doing, but it sort of looks like he’s typing or something. 

Suddenly the escape hatch opens, and the other Mechanorimon comes inside. The water filters out, and the door on their side opens up. They all stare anxiously at it. It doesn’t move. The Kaiser is making some sort of weird gesture towards it with his hands. 

“Does he want one of us to…get inside it?” Daisuke asks the rest of the room.

“What, you think he’s trying to save us or something? Don’t be stupid!” Miyako snaps. Abruptly, the sound of an incoming messages beeps in all their pockets. It’s from Ken. He wades through most of the insults and eventually gets the message of “Get in the stupid thing already, I’m trying to help you, idiots!” Daisuke gives Miyako a smug look. 

“Oh come on! You don’t actually think he’s telling the truth, do you?” Miyako retorted. Yeah, Daisuke actually did believe that, he realized. Because if the Kaiser was tricking them, he’d be calm, not looking like he was about to rip his hair out with frustration. He also looked kinda…scared? So yeah, Ken was probably telling the truth. He wasn’t a very good actor. At least, not as good as he thought he was.

“Truth or not, it doesn’t look like Iori’s coming back, so this might be our only option.” Takeru concedes, staring pensively at the stationary Mechanorimon. Hikari looks unsure for a bit, but eventually nods. 

“Normally I’d say ladies first, but it could be something horrible, so I’ll say Takeru should go first” Daisuke says. He doesn’t actually think there’s any danger at all, but they need to decide who should go first quickly, so whatever.

“No, I’ll go.” Miyako says surprisingly, and doesn’t wait for any approval before marching over and climbing into the Mechanorimon with Hawkmon right behind her. Ken had apparently had his finger on the button or something, because they’re immediately locked in and shot out into the water. The Mechanorimon swims straight up from there, and the Kaiser is still blocking his view, so he can’t see her for very long. But it looks like the Kaiser is watching her, so that’s good, he guesses?

It’s a long wait for the Mechanorimon to come back, but the deathly silence might be part of that. It does come back eventually though.

Hikari is the next to go. He watches what little he can see from the spot he’s taken on the floor. They’re getting tired and running out of time. That much is obvious. Even the Kaiser can tell, as he’s stopped looking at Hikari and has taken to staring at them with concern etched all over his face.

There’s less silence this time. Takeru tells him he’s sorry for making fun of him. Says he’s a great leader, that they wouldn’t be the same without him. He says that it’s obvious that one of them isn’t going to make it out of this alive. He says that he wants Daisuke to take the next trip.

Daisuke punches him. He grabs Takeru by the shoulders and turns him to face Daisuke eye to eye.

“I’m not leaving this place until my entire team is safe and sound. You’re taking the next trip up, Takaishi. Whether you want to or not. That’s an order from your great leader, ok?” Daisuke says. He tries to smile but nobody believes it. Takeru nods anyways. The Kaiser seems to have started staring up above himself anxiously. 

A few seconds later, the hatch open up and the Mechanorimon pops back inside. Daisuke has to help Takeru onto his feet again, and shakily helps him get up and into the Mechanorimon. Patamon gives a weak wave as they shoot out into the sea. He watches them go, staying on his feet because he isn’t really sure he’ll be able to get up again if he sits down. Was this room always so cold? He doesn’t remember. He also doesn’t understand why Ken is starting to look more and more worried all of a sudden. 

He understands why when he abruptly falls forward and collapses onto the floor. Veemon rushes over, yelling for him to get up and asking something that might be “What’s wrong?” but Daisuke can’t tell anymore. He can still see the bottom of the window but for some reason he can’t see Ken anymore. What’s that sound? The hatch? He isn’t sure. Are things getting louder? Veemon’s feet sound way louder all of a sudden. What was he yelling now? Die…what?

He was suddenly flipped over onto his back. Ken…? Was it Ken though? Everything was so blurry. Why was it getting so dark all of a sudden? Why couldn’t he move anymore? He tries to say something, but not even his voice is working. If he was making any noise he couldn’t hear it. All he could hear was ringing. He wished Ken would stop shaking him so much. Why did his face feel wet all of a sudden? He could barely feel it anymore though. Everything was going cold. Oh god, it was cold.

~+~

He was at the last save point. God, that sucked. He reached up to feel at whatever it was he’d felt on his face. It wasn’t tears, they didn’t start at his eyes. What was that weird sniffing sound behind him?

“H-huh…?” Daisuke whipped around now. 

Oh. Ken was here. 

Right, he’d been shaking Daisuke. 

…Shit. 

Daisuke then realized that the stuff on his face had come from Ken crying. He’s not sure if that’s sad or gross. Ken looks up at him in confusion, tears still running down his face, and Daisuke decides that it’s sad. Oh well, this save point was ruined anyways now that Ken was here. Ken’s about to say something when Daisuke destroys the save point, but Daisuke already has a knife through his chest before he gets a chance.


	8. Abnormal

When Jun finds out that Daisuke’s been spending his afternoons running around another world fighting monsters, she honestly isn’t all that surprised.

“He’s done weirder things.” She tells them all with a shrug, and while it makes everyone laugh, that doesn’t mean she’s kidding. Daisuke has done stranger things on at least a thousand occasions. It was like he was built to do confusing things that made her question everything she thought she knew. 

Cute little blue dragons were nothing really.

The first, perhaps strangest incident happened when Daisuke was still just a toddler. Daisuke had woken her up in the middle of the night, attempting to pull her out of bed and crying incomprehensibly. Jun recalls having initially been upset about the rude awakening, but something about the petrified look on his face had caused her anger to fade and be replaced with worry. She got up and let Daisuke pull her along out of their bedroom, staring in confusion as he violently slammed the door into place behind them.

He pulled her to the wall opposite of their room and…stopped. He didn’t do anything else, just stared back at their room like it was going to try and eat them whole. She tried to get some sort of answer out of her brother, asking if he’d had a nightmare or something. 

Her answer doesn’t come from her sniveling little brother, but instead comes from the sounds of something akin to a cannonball outside. There are three giant bangs, and then a deafening crash hits her ears from the room in front of them and she’s on the ground before she even realizes it’s shaking. Daisuke is screaming now and Jun’s thoughts are bouncing around her head as she tries to figure out what’s happening.

Then her parents are there, her dad grabbing the two of them, and over his shoulder she can see her mother opening the door to the devastated room that she’d been in mere seconds before. And now her mom is screaming and there’s fire, so much fire and Jun starts screaming too, though she’s not sure what she’s actually screaming as her father lifts her up and rushes them out of the apartment. Shouts and fire alarms ring all throughout the halls and there’s so many people rushing around them that the ground feels like it’s shaking again.

After an eternity of being jostled around like dolls, Jun looks up to see that they’re out on the street. There’s a giant pile of rubble where the bridge used to be and sirens in the air and once Jun feels brave enough to look back at their apartment, she peeks up and sees a gaping hole with flames burning brightly inside it. Her eyes stay locked on it as her father sets her and Daisuke down on a bench. Her mom is trying to talk to her but Jun can’t hear what she’s saying. All she can focus on is the raging fire as the firemen come and try and put out the flames engulfing the room she’d been asleep in just a little while ago. 

Daisuke has a death grip on her, face buried in her shirt as he keeps crying unintelligibly. She dully puts an arm around him as the last burning light flickers out in the apartment above them.

They’re staying with Jun’s aunt and uncle as her parents try to find a new home for them to live in. It’s strange, all the adults seem to be avoiding every little thing she asks. They just pat her on the head and tell her that everything is ok now and Jun doesn’t understand because that’s not what she asked at all. She’d asked why they weren’t going to be moving back to Hikarigaoka, she’d asked how the fire had started.

She’d asked about that word that the news people kept saying whenever they were talking about their home. They were using it all the time, so it had to be an important word, right? What was wrong with that word? They weren’t censoring it like the bad words, so why wouldn’t they tell her what that tear-wrist thing was? 

They don’t answer any of her questions, they shush her and shoo her away and it’s annoying her. It’s not fair that she doesn’t get to know. 

Especially when they keep whispering about how she and Daisuke could have died. 

It’s strange, hearing people say how lucky it is you aren’t dead. It makes you think about it. If Daisuke hadn’t woken her up, would she really have died?

It was scary to think about, so Jun tried not to think about it.

One day, Mom is once again talking about how lucky it is her and Daisuke had been out of the room. It then finally occurs to her to ask Jun why. Jun describes how Daisuke had dragged her out of the room with no explanation, sobbing, shaky and clearly terrified.

From that day forward, Jun sometimes hears her uncle and her mom whispering back and forth about curses. Dad says it’s just silly nonsense when she asks, and tells her not to worry about it. She tries to push it out of her head.

Daisuke was a lot worse than Jun at not thinking about things. 

They had to keep him out of the room whenever mom and auntie were cooking with the stove, because he kept crying whenever he saw the fire. 

He also kept having nightmares, ones that Jun could never seem to wake him up from, for whatever reason. It was like he was locked into it, she couldn’t get him to wake him up no matter what she tried.

Instead, she’d taken to crawling in next to him. That method always worked, somehow. He’d quiet down and curl up into her chest almost instantly. It was actually rather cute, and Jun supposed that was an ok enough reason to put up with it every night. 

Unfortunately, the nightmares didn’t stop once they got to their new home in Odaiba. And so, every night, Daisuke would wake up screaming and Jun would have to go over to his room and comfort him. 

Oh well, it woke her up whenever she was having nightmares of her own.

Daisuke is five when they find out that he’d gotten another fear.

It’d started with their parents watching a war drama, one of their favorite movies from their collection. Daisuke hadn’t been in the room when a bunch of bombs went off in the movie, but as Jun passed his room she noticed him shaking and clutching his head.

She goes over to him to find that he’s crying. She shakes him and tries to pull him into a hug but he doesn’t respond, just mumbles disjointedly and breathes in gasps, like he’s drowning or something as tears flow down his face. She keeps trying but it’s as though he can’t hear her, like he can’t even see that she’s there. 

Another bomb goes off in the other room and he flinches and starts sobbing harder. The mumbling gets louder and Jun is finally able to make out the words “make it stop” and so Jun finds herself whipping around and yelling at her parents to shut off the tv. 

Her mom peaks in from the living room, looking in confusion at the two of them before another bomb goes off and Daisuke jumps out of his skin again.  
The tv is shut off and within a matter of seconds both of her parents have joined her in trying to pull Daisuke back into reality.

Eventually her mother has Daisuke pulled up into an unreciprocated hug, gently brushing a hand through his hair as she and dad keep talking to him. 

After what seems like an eternity, Daisuke looks up at her and finally seems to realize she’s there. 

He lunges out of mom’s arms and is squeezing the life out of her a second later, sobbing into her chest and crying even harder than before. She hugs back and as their parents come in around them for a group hug, she realizes she’s crying too, though she’s not sure when it started. They stay like that for a long time.

The movie is never mentioned again.

Whenever they get a new movie, dad watches through it by himself with headphones on, just to make sure there’s nothing that sounds like a bomb.

Life goes on like normal for a long time after that. Jun almost forgets how strange Daisuke can be. Until two years later. 

When Jun had suggested that the two of them go over to the park, she hadn’t expected Daisuke to suddenly look terrified. She also hadn’t expected him to suddenly start crying and shouting about it.

“No! We can’t go outside Jun!” He suddenly started yelling. Jun had nearly starting shouting back at him to stop throwing such a hissy fit. She’d stopped, though, because of the tears that were forming in Daisuke’s eyes.

No, he wasn’t throwing a tantrum or anything like that...he was scared for some reason...Why would he be scared?

Confused, but not wanting to frighten her brother anymore, she tried gently asking why it was that he didn’t want them going out.

“Because we’ll die!”…Was the response she got. By all means, something like that should’ve seen as a joke, and Jun should’ve taken it as one. And yet, Daisuke hadn’t made any indication that he was anything other than dead serious.

This was immensely confusing and honestly a little bit scary, but some strange little voice in the back of her head told Jun that it made sense. He had saved her once before, hadn’t he? And besides, he looked so scared...

…Even if it was just Daisuke being weird, there was no harm in humoring him. If it made him feel better, they could stay home today.

Fifteen minutes later, there’s a car accident on the street outside their building.

She hears tires screeching from outside the house and runs out onto the balcony to see a crashed car and a wave of shouting people.

On the exact route they took to the park. 

A cold chill runs down her spine as she sees the broken body of a boy in the middle of the street as she realizes that it could’ve been her.

She hears a shuffle behind her and turns to see Daisuke staring down at the street, looking sadder than she can ever remember seeing him. He starts crying later, when they find out that the boy had died. 

He’s unnervingly quiet for the rest of the day.

The next morning, she and Daisuke are sitting in the living room when the biggest lady Jun has ever seen enters the room, with their parents squished on either side of her. 

Her parents tell them that the lady is a distant relative, and that Daisuke is going to be staying at her house for a week.

Her parents are very unconvincing liars. 

It turns out that there’s nothing Jun can do about it, no matter how much she whines. And so Daisuke ends up leaving out the door with the lady. 

Jun knows nothing about her, but she’s already decided that she hates her.

A disturbingly quiet week passes in the Motomiya household without Jun being able to get any information out of her parents. She wakes up on the seventh morning and immediately starts screaming at them to go get Daisuke back. They tell her to calm down and that Daisuke will be home in the afternoon but none of that calms her down at all.

Even seeing Daisuke doesn’t make her feel any better. He’s quiet and flinches a lot and he keeps smiling even though something is obviously really wrong and it’s weird because if something was wrong than why wasn’t Daisuke crying or yelling about it like he always did? 

Like he should be doing. 

But Daisuke never said what was wrong, he just went into his room and spent the rest of the day with that weird book he’d brought home with him. He’d also asked mom for a notebook, for whatever reason. 

Everything was weird and confusing and it was bugging her a lot.

That night, there was no screaming. Jun woke up the next morning, confused as to why she hadn’t been woken up for once. 

She asked Daisuke if he’d had a nightmare. He said no, and his face said he was lying but she hadn’t heard him scream and she didn’t have any other proof to shove in his face. 

Well fine then, if Daisuke was going to lie to her like that! If he wanted hide in his room with his stupid book and refuse to tell her what was wrong, then Jun didn’t have to help him. It wasn’t Jun’s problem, it was Daisuke’s fault for being a brat!

She later came to regret her decision. 

Two nights later, she woke up to go to the bathroom, and noticed a sniffing sound coming from Daisuke’s room. She barges into his room to find him curled up in a ball and very obviously having a nightmare. Pretty much everything about the scene in front of her was the same as normal. The only difference was the lack of screaming. 

She can’t wake him up anyways, so she crawls in with him, and as always he quickly calms down. 

She’ll lecture him about lying to her tomorrow. For now, her little brother is being cute and not annoying. 

The next morning, she wakes up to the feeling of movement beside her and opens her eyes to see Daisuke wide awake and staring at her in confusion.

“Jun?...Why are you in my bed?” He asks her. Jun is a bit…weirded out by the amount of confusion and distress in her brother’s voice. It’s not like she hasn’t done this a million times before, right?  
“’Cause you were having a nightmare. Duh.” She says simply, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at how weird Daisuke is being. 

And then Daisuke gets even weirder. 

He starts saying he’s sorry over and over and it’s stupid because what would he have to be sorry for? 

She tells him to stop apologizing and then he starts apologizing for apologizing and Jun suddenly finds herself getting very irritated very quickly and she snaps at him to shut up. Daisuke mumbles another sorry before actually listening to the demand. She tells him to be quiet again and hugs him.

“Stop apologizing. It’s not like you can help having nightmares, idiot. What’re you even apologizing for anyways? It’s not like this is the first time this has happened or anything.” She grumbles at him.

“…Sorry. I didn’t wanna bug you anymore…I thought I’d done it but I guess I was still too loud, I’m sorry…” He mumbled. Wait, he’d…stopped himself from crying on purpose? Because of her!? 

Jun’s blood boiled and before she could think of what she was doing, she’d smacked Daisuke across the face.

“Stop being such a dumb little brat! I’m your big sister, I’m supposed to take care of you. It’s my job, stupid!” She yells. Daisuke looks up at her with what appears mostly to be shock, and in the back of her mind Jun feels a wave of relief in knowing that she hadn’t hit him too hard. 

She hadn’t gotten the lesson drilled into his stupid head yet, though.

“No more keeping secrets. If you keep having nightmares, come tell me. Don’t. Hide it. From me. Got it?” Jun asked, glaring daggers at him until he nodded. She sighed and smiled. She’d gotten the message across.

At least, she’d thought she had until she woke up to get a drink a few nights later and found out that once again, Daisuke was having a nightmare. He was being even quieter than before. 

She crawls in next to him and repeats the lecture the next morning. It doesn’t work. 

She decides that she hates that giant lady more than anyone else in the world.

Luckily, she never sees that awful woman again.

She does however, keep seeing that dumb book she gave Daisuke. He keeps it on his desk next to that notebook he’d asked mom for and Jun doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing with it because she opened it up once and found that it wasn’t even in Japanese. She didn’t even know what language it was. 

It turned out that the notebook wasn’t, either. Daisuke had filled it up with some other weird writing that looked kinda like English but she didn’t recognize any of the words at all. 

Actually, this wasn’t exactly true, because the second half of the notebook was in Japanese. Or rather, Daisuke had flipped the book upside down and written in Japanese on the other side. It was all a bunch of nonsense though, she couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was supposed to mean. Some of the terms sounded vaguely like something you would hear in a video game. 

What was even wrong with that little brother of hers?

One day, a hoard of ghosts breaks into their house and kidnaps their family. And the rest of the neighborhood. 

Just when Jun thought things couldn’t get any worse, one of the ghosts drags Daisuke off somewhere. Daisuke is a lot less afraid than she would’ve expected her fraidy-cat brother to be, though. Instead, he’s kicking and shouting and being a lot braver than Jun would’ve imagined if she’d ever thought about the possibility of Daisuke being dragged away by a bunch of ghosts.

Nonetheless, Daisuke still gets separated from them and then there’s some weird thing where everyone starts chanting and trying to get away and she doesn’t understand why they’re trying to get away while her brother is still missing but it doesn’t matter anyways because it doesn’t work. And then there’s some really big vampire guy and then some fog and then before Jun knows it she’s waking up on the floor. 

Everyone else does too, and there’s yelling and confusion but somehow the Motomiyas make their way to where the children were taken. And find out that Daisuke isn’t there.

Her mom goes into hysterics and starts running around and then runs outside for some reason, something about motherly instincts, but it’s fine because it turns out that Daisuke actually was outside. Somehow.

Daisuke never explains and since there’s suddenly mountains in the sky they all just sort of forget to ask. 

They watch the sky and some weird spectacle with a giant creepy monster and a bunch of kids and other monster thingies, and then they all go home and never mention it again. 

Daisuke starts asking their parents for a pair of goggles, though.

From then on, everything is about as normal as it gets for their family. Daisuke still refuses to tell Jun about his nightmares and still has his books full of weird scribbles and cryptic nonsense, but for the most part they’re normal. 

This doesn’t change until Daisuke is eleven, when Jun is woken up to the sound of Daisuke screaming. It’s been so many years and yet it still sounds a little familiar as Jun rushes to her brother’s bedroom.  
It’s the worst nightmare he’s had in years.

Jun doesn’t actually think she’s ever seen him this bad.

Jun tries with no avail to console him with the usual embrace and it occurs to her that she might need to wake him up this time. As usual though, no amount of shaking or yelling on her part breaks him out of it. He keeps shaking and sobbing horribly and mumbling gibberish and Jun is suddenly reminded of that awful movie night all those years ago. It’s startling to hear him muttering like this, because Daisuke normally doesn’t talk at all, even if he’s having a serious nightmare. 

Something is really wrong. 

She has to get him up, she has to but nothing is working and he’s getting worse with every second and Jun suddenly gets the insane idea to shove Daisuke out of the bed.

It gets him awake, but even that doesn’t do much good because Daisuke is still a complete mess, he just has his eyes open now. Jun gets down on the floor with him and tries shaking him and telling him it’s ok but she might as well be talking to a brick wall for all the good it’s doing. 

She eventually tries pulling him into a hug, attempting to recreate the solution to that awful event that she’d tried her best to forget. And so she sits on the floor with her arms wrapped around Daisuke for thirty minutes before he comes down to earth again.

The awareness slowly trickles back into his eyes as he starts trying to wipe away the tears in them, even though they’re still coming out like waterfalls.

He starts mumbling those damn apologies again but Jun doesn’t have it in her to scold him right now, so she just shushes him and pulls him in for another hug. A few minutes of silence hang in the air before Daisuke mutters that he’ll be fine and that she can go back to her room now.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to crawl in with you?” She asks, partially joking but honestly she’s still worried about him and she’d feel better if he said yes.

He shakes his head though, so Jun reluctantly gets up and leaves the room. 

She swears she hears whispering as she heads back to bed.

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been nervous when Daisuke suddenly decided to have his first ever sleepover. Sure, it was Ken Ichijouji and everything, but even if Daisuke was calling him his best friend, she wasn’t sure what would happen if Daisuke had another bad nightmare while Ken was with him.

And those had been getting frequent again, for whatever reason.

Everything goes off without a hitch though. Somehow. She supposes she’s happy for him. 

They do seem to be pretty close, after all…How did someone like Ken Ichijouji end up being friends with her brother, anyways?

A few months later, she finds out that it’s because they’d been running around another world fighting monsters. 

Jun isn’t really surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that Dai's parents aren't half this nice but w/e creative license exists to be exploited gratuitously.


	9. Reflection

Was this the final battle? 

This Malowhatevermon certainly seemed like a final boss kinda guy. Well, not that they were having any trouble at the moment. They actually doing pretty well, all things considered.

Wait, what was that light?

Daisuke was walking to school, like any other ordinary day. He started whistling to himself. He wasn’t even at school yet, but he was already wishing that the day would hurry up and be over so that he could head to the digital world with his friends. He shoved his hands into his jacket and joyfully imagined all the fun they would have. Wait, what was that in his pocket?

He closed his hand around it and pulled out...a knife.

Why the heck did he have a knife in his pocket!?

That was..actually pretty terrifying. What on earth was a knife of all things doing in his pocket? He didn’t even remember owning a knife!

The thought of throwing it away crossed over his mind. It didn’t look as though it looked all that expensive...But some voice in the back of his mind screamed against the very idea of disposing of it. Why though? It wasn’t as though it was important or anything...right? So why were his feet glued to the floor instead of walking over to the garbage can? 

Maybe it was...his dad’s. Or something. Yeah, he must’ve borrowed it for something and forgotten to give it back. Yeah. That sounded right. He’d just give it to his dad when he got home, then. 

He shoved it back into his pocket and continued walking with Veemon. 

Wait...Veemon? Why was he Veemon now?

...And why was he looking at him all concerned-like?

“...What’s different? I don’t get it.” Veemon mumbles. He probably hadn’t meant for Daisuke to hear that, given that it didn’t really make any sense. Something about it resonated a little bit though, in the back of his head, and Daisuke isn’t sure why. Then Veemon does address him.

“Daisuke, are you absolutely sure that you want...whatever this is?” Veemon says, clearly struggling to get his words in order. Daisuke still misses whatever he’s trying to say though, and he raises an eyebrow at Veemon. 

Veemon, apparently out of ideas on what to say, reaches up into Daisuke’s pocket and yanks out the knife. 

Daisuke isn’t sure why that freaks him out so much, all he knows is that something in the back of his mind is suddenly screaming like a banshee.

It doesn’t help much when Veemon decides to chuck it. His breathing abruptly picks up, almost to the point of hyperventilation. For some indiscernible reason, he feels overwhelmingly terrified. He can’t find the source of the feeling, but all of a sudden it feels as though his throat is closing up. His head was spinning around in circles to the point of nausea and before he knew what he was doing he’d ran and grabbed the knife.

Immediately, a confusing wave of relief washed over him. What...was that? Why had he freaked out like that?

“What’s that knife, Daisuke?” Veemon asked quietly from behind him. Daisuke turned around to face him again. Veemon looked as confused as Daisuke felt.

“...I have no idea. It’s just a knife, right? It isn’t important.” His own reaction had said otherwise, but nonetheless he still held onto the idea that it wasn’t important. His brain was really adamant about telling him to just ignore it, for some reason.

“Isn’t it important, though?” Veemon didn’t even sound sure about that himself. It was clear at this point that he was trying to get Daisuke to realize something, but Daisuke couldn’t figure it out for the life of him.

“I don’t...think so?” He said, although he was becoming more and more unsure about that with every second that passed.

“Then why do you have it?” Veemon asked simply. It should’ve been an easy enough question to answer. Daisuke stared down at the knife. Why did he have it? 

It was because…

Because…

Oh. That’s right.

He remembered now.

It was because he needed protect everyone.

All at once, Daisuke’s memories came flooding back, and the space around him turned completely white. Veemon looked up at him with a very confused smile. Daisuke plastered on a smile of his own, and the two of them walked out of the white to go stop the last boss.

An illusion spell, huh? What had been the purpose of that world, he wondered. A world where he didn’t remember his powers. Well, he supposed that would be pretty useful to the bad guy if Daisuke didn’t know that he could just reset. Why’d they set him up on some random normal day though? He didn’t get it…And Veemon kept looking at him really weirdly, though he supposed that was a bit reasonable.

They find Takeru’s world next. Takeru is eating dinner with his family. Was the dream world trying to trap him in by making him super happy or something? They came in just as Patamon was snapping him out of it, so Daisuke doesn’t get much of a chance to try and figure it out. They head into Miyako’s world next, and find a similar scenario. And then the same with Hikari. And Iori. They all had worlds where their dreams came true. 

The implications of that scared Daisuke.

But that was nothing compared to what they saw in Ken’s world.

Daisuke tried to convince himself that he and Ken were just probably weird exceptions. He didn’t do a very good job.

Surely, surely that couldn’t have been something that Ken really wanted. The awful, unwanted images that kept flashing through his head said otherwise. All of his confusion about his own world was gone now, replaced by the terror of a problem he’d thought he’d solved. Hadn’t it worked? He’d thought getting Wormmon back to him had stopped this stuff. He’d been wrong apparently. Maybe he’d put a stop to the immediate problem...but it hadn’t actually fixed the real issue.

He wasn’t sure how to fix the real issue. 

And that terrified him. 

He didn’t get much time to worry about it though, because they all died almost immediately after they started fighting again.

Well, he supposed he ought to start heading to the final boss again.

Answering your wishes...he could use that. Maybe he could try and wish for Veemon to get strong enough to win? It was worth a shot. He had as many shots as he needed, after all.

He wasn’t sure how to feel when he saw Ken. His paranoia was yelling at him to find a way to fix it all. Fix everything. He had to fix it right now. Before it happened again.  
...Did it really need fixing though? It wasn’t like Daisuke truly wanted what he’d seen in his world, right? So...maybe it would be fine.

He doesn’t actually believe that, but there wasn’t anything he could really do about it at the moment anyways, so he figured it would be best to just try and convince himself to believe it.

So he kept his fears on lockdown as events played out accordingly once again. He acted on the exact same script as the first time, right up until the flash of light.

Surprisingly enough, his plan actually succeeded, and he found himself with three Veemons, all in different evolutions. And so they each went to go rescue a different person in dreamland. He figured they could all go after Ken as a group. Yeah, that would probably be best.

So, he rushed over to pick up Takeru, and together the two of them hurried off to Ken’s dream. They couldn’t get in right away, though. Wormmon was still in the process of snapping him back into reality, and so they watched the awful dream play out from the edge. The look in Ken’s eyes bothered him. A lot.

Why did it look so familiar?

The look disappeared once they got over to him, and so Daisuke tried to turn off all the alarm bells that were ringing through his head. He mostly succeeded. He tried to avoid eye contact with Ken as much as possible for the rest of the fight anyways. It wasn’t as hard as he’d have thought, as Ken seemed to be keeping his own gaze locked on the ground himself. 

Somehow, they actually ended up winning. And after just one reset, too. Maybe his luck wasn’t so god-awful after all. I mean sure, that Oikawa guy died, but other than that it was a pretty good victory overall. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go about telling his family about all this now, though. 

But then it turned out that they were...weirdly accepting of it. It was almost shocking, even to Daisuke. Jun wasn’t even all that surprised. It was genuinely kind of freaky.

His paranoia levels kept going up on the ride home, as his mother kept giving him weird looks. Not like, freaked out that he’d been running around another world kind of weird. It was a different look, one Daisuke wasn’t really able to place. Jun seemed to notice it too, though she didn’t seem as confused about it as Daisuke. Why was his family so weird? Oh whatever, he was never going to be able to decipher it. His family was harder to figure out than a vague, cryptic old book written in a weird language that no one even speaks anymore.

Daisuke soon finds himself getting very tired of being stared at. 

The second they get home, he darts into the bathroom for some privacy. Well, Chibi is still with him, but still. The little guy stopped bothering to ask questions ages ago. Having nothing else to do, Daisuke looks at himself in the mirror.

Oh.

That’s why Ken’s eyes looked so familiar. 

He suddenly felt like being stared at might be a bit nicer than being in the bathroom.

Chibimon ate at the dinner table that evening. It was actually pretty nice. It felt like a weight off his shoulders, not having to worry about getting Chibimon food without anyone noticing. A lot of things are nicer, now that Daisuke doesn’t have to worry about hiding Chibimon or explaining where he’s been all day.

He gets a surprise though, when he finds Jun in his room after dinner. She has that look on her face that says that she’s about to confront him about something. Fuck.

“So. Was that nightmare you had about the digital world?” She doesn’t even have to specify which one. Not that she knew he’d still been having nightmares since then. Or maybe she did, you could never know with a weirdo like Jun. 

He’d had nightmares about Ken’s suicide for weeks, though he’d looked up how to put a silencing spell on himself after that first incident with Jun. It was the most awful thing ever. Chibimon had pressured him about the nightmares too. It was one of the few things Chibimon even bothered trying to pry him about. 

It’d passed Daisuke’s mind once or twice to actually tell Chibimon about everything. But no, he couldn’t do that. It’d break the little guy’s heart. 

It was better if he just kept quiet.

But back to the matter at hand.

Daisuke most certainly couldn’t tell Jun about anything, so he supposed he could just...go along with it. He nodded at her.

Jun looked kind of suspicious. Crap, had he taken too long?

“...Ok. Then can you tell me what on earth it was about? I’ve...never seen you that bad.” She asks, though something about the way she said that last part seemed kind of weird. At any rate, Daisuke wasn’t really sure how to follow up on his lie now. Maybe have just a little bit of the truth? As long as he was vague about it…

“The nightmare...Ken, he...Ken d-died in that dream.” Daisuke muttered, accidentally drudging up the well of emotions that came with remembering that scene. Crap, he could feel tears pricking at his eyes. He slowly looks up at Jun to see her looking like she’s in shock, with her face drained of all color. She snaps out of it a second later, yanking Daisuke down into a tight hug. 

Daisuke makes it about ten seconds before he starts crying. Every feeling he’d tried to bury six feet under abruptly comes back to life and the weight of it all feels like it’s crushing him. He didn’t know he was capable of sobbing so much, but Jun doesn’t seem to mind that much. She just gently brushes a hand through his hair soothingly and mumbles simple little things that are surprisingly comforting, somehow. 

“It’s ok...you don’t have to be scared anymore...he’s safe now.” She says, and with that last statement, Daisuke bursts out into even more tears. Jun says nothing more, just starts rubbing circles on his back as he continues to sob uncontrollably. 

He feels something soft around his hand, and realizes Chibimon has crawled up onto the bed and started hugging it. 

“Don’t cry Daisuke...Ken will be ok, he has Wormmon to keep him safe.” Chibimon tells him, and in his mind Daisuke vaguely acknowledges that yes, Wormmon probably is the thing that’s keeping Ken safe. Will he always be enough, though?

Maybe...he won’t have to be.

Maybe, one day…

All of them together will be enough.

This pleasant thought settles itself in the back of Daisuke’s head, and he finally starts to calm down. Yeah, maybe everything will be fine. Ken will be fine.

His tears slowly come to a stop, and Jun gives him one last pat on the head before saying goodnight and heading out of the room.

Chibimon stares up at him with big, worried eyes and it’s clear that he still wants to say something. He doesn’t though, and so Daisuke quickly changes and crawls into bed. He looks over at Chibimon, whose eyes are still filled with deep concern.

“No telling Ken, promise?” Daisuke whispers to him. Chibimon looks even more concerned, but he nods anyways.

“...Ok. I promise...Are you sure though?” He asks, clearly not happy about the prospect of hiding this from Ken.

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s not like there’s anything he can do about it, so it’s better if we keep it a secret. It would just make him super sad if he found out.” Daisuke tells him. Chibimon still looks unconvinced, but he doesn’t say anything more and the two of them soon drift off to sleep.

For the first time in months, Daisuke has no nightmares.


	10. Future

Daisuke looks at the calendar and realizes that Miyako’s birthday was last week.

Voicing his distress about this only leads to Wormmon lecturing him about how he doesn’t pay enough attention to time these days.

“It’s not like she’ll mind, you visit every day anyways.” He tells him. Daisuke ends up apologizing anyways when they get to the graveyard. He promises he’ll buy a second bouquet on Iori’s birthday and give it to her then. Wormmon tells him that he really ought to stop buying everyone flowers.

“Hey, I don’t buy Mimi flowers!” He counters lamely.

“Yeah, only because her grave is in America. You’d be buying her two bouquets a year like everyone else if you could.” Daisuke doesn’t really have rebuttal for that. He doesn’t remember when Wormmon got so snarky, either. It’s funny, almost. He used to have the best memory ever. He supposes it’s just because there’s not much for him to remember anymore. Everything that was important is gone.

Well, besides Wormmon. He honestly wasn’t sure what he’d do if Wormmon died. 

No, he shouldn’t even be thinking about that kind of if. He wasn’t going to let something like that happen ever again. He’d keep the last member of his precious family alive if it killed him ten thousand times. He wouldn’t give up ever again.

Wormmon doesn’t like this, for some reason. He keeps telling Daisuke that he needs to learn how to move on. Going on about how Ken and the others wouldn’t have wanted him to be this hung up. 

He says that Daisuke needs to let himself heal and move on from it. Daisuke isn’t sure how he’s supposed to do that when he just recently started being able to see a rope without feeling vomit in his throat. How’s he supposed to fix a new scar when he’s still trying to sew up the old ones? 

He tells Wormmon that he just needs time. Once again, Wormmon asks him why he never said anything when Ken was still alive. He looks at Daisuke with those eyes that never fail to make him feel guilty and asks him why he never let them help him. They could’ve helped him. Why? Hadn’t Daisuke trusted them? 

“Of course I did!” Daisuke cries. 

“Then why didn’t you say something!?” Wormmon yells, and Daisuke immediately hates himself for how hurt the other sounds. He knows Wormmon is right, knows he should’ve said something.

He’d tried to, really he had. He tried so many times to get the words out, but then Ken had found out but it hadn’t been the right way at all and Ken was hurt and it was all his fault all his fault he should’ve been more careful Ken was hurt hurt hurt no Ken couldn’t be hurt he had to protect him or else it would happen again and-

And Daisuke never tried to tell Ken again. It was wrong of him. He should’ve told him. But he’d just been so miserable looking and Daisuke was too afraid to let that happen again. 

But Ken had been upset because he’d been worried about Daisuke. Ken had probably actually wanted to help him, back then. But he hadn’t realized that back then and now it was too late and Ken was gone forever and Daisuke would never be able to tell him how sorry he was. He didn’t realize his stupid mistake until it was too late to fix it. Typical Daisuke.

He can’t tell bring himself to tell Wormmon that though. He just gives some pathetic excuse for an apology as they reach the front of their apartment. And then Daisuke sees something that stops him in his tracks. 

A save point. It isn’t his save point.

It looked exactly like his save points, identical even. But his was in the house. He didn’t want to know what that meant, but he’d probably find out once they made it up to the apartment anyways. Welp, Wormmon was staring at him all confused and concerned now. Time to go find out what the fuck is happening. 

His door is unlocked. That definitely wasn’t something he’d done. Great. 

He enters the apartment. 

There’s a small girl sitting on the couch. She looks like she might be ten at the oldest. Her eyes meet his and he suddenly can’t imagine that she could possibly be that young. They stare at each other as Wormmon promptly begins freaking out.

She’s the first one to speak. She introduces herself and Daisuke realizes that the girl in front of him is Jun’s granddaughter.

Oh.

Oh _god._

“So I’m guessing from the look on your face that you probably just figured out why I’m here, right?” The girl says, smiling weakly as Wormmon stops yelling and turns to stare at him in confusion. Daisuke doesn’t say anything, just stands with his mouth agape as she continues.  
She tells him that she heard about him from some lady, Daisuke doesn’t recognize the name. She says that she lives with an organization of immortals or something like that. They’re gearing up for some sort of epic battle and she’d wanted to find out if there’s any other kind of powers that she might have inherited, and so she’d come to see what she could find out from him.

Daisuke’s head is spinning. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had a grandniece. A grandniece who’d been cursed with the same nightmare as him. 

And he hadn’t even been there to help her. 

He berates himself for ever having cut himself off from Jun’s kids as he goes to dig out the old, worn out manual that’s been tossed aside and gathering dust for decades now. He hears his apparent grandniece and Wormmon talking in the other room as he finds it, buried at the bottom of the closet under year’s worth of random junk.

As he comes back into the room, Wormmon turns to look at him with a...strange look on his face. Determined, maybe? 

“Daisuke, let’s move in with her organization.” He says suddenly. Daisuke stares at him in utter confusion for a few seconds before he decides to continue.

“They all live together in this big building on an island near the coast. It’s close enough that you could easily go to the graveyard whenever you wanted to and-”

“Wormmon slow down! Why do you even want us to move there in the first place!?” Daisuke asks, finally finding his voice enough to get a word in. 

“Wouldn’t that be better? We can’t stay in this apartment forever, someone’s going to notice you not aging eventually. And besides, if some massive fight is going to happen here in Tokyo, then wouldn’t it be better to be where all the stronger people are?” Wormmon is doing that thing where he says something different than what he actually wants to. Daisuke used to think that’d he’d picked it up from Ken, but now that he thinks about it he realizes that Wormmon could just as easily have picked it up from him. They weren’t a very honest family, were they?

“Wormmon, why do you actually want us to move there? Just tell me.” Daisuke says. He realizes that this is probably the most hypocritical thing he could possibly say, but he honestly doesn’t care. The irony isn’t lost on Wormmon though, and Daisuke receives an eye roll before Wormmon takes on a sullen expression. 

“I don’t think I need to explain that I’ve been worried about you, Daisuke. Apparently, this whole organization is like...a family. Not like, the mafia kind, though. I think...I think it would be good for you Daisuke.” Wormmon says, looking up at him like a concerned mother. Daisuke lasts for about a minute before he caves and agrees. Wormmon is overjoyed.

A month later, Daisuke and Wormmon have moved into their new home on the island. 

Daisuke is staring in pain at the large amassment of boxes they’ve brought with them when there’s suddenly a knock on the door.

It turns out to be his grandniece, with some boy behind her that’s smiling like a cheshire cat and looks like he’s about to explode. He does. The boy comes bounding into the apartment and starts hugging the life out of him before Daisuke even has the chance to say hello.

“Woo hoo! Nice to meet you uncle gramps!” The boy shouts in his ears. Daisuke grimaces, instinctively trying to cover his ears but failing to move his arm an inch in the kid’s ridiculously strong grip. It was way too early in the morning for this.

“Who do you think you’re calling uncle gramps!? I’m not that old! And get off of me!” He shouts. His mortified grandniece pries the boy off of him, spouting apologies a mile a minute and somehow making breaks in between to berate the younger boy.

“I’m so sorry and- hey, you apologize too! I’m not the one who made a mistake, you idiot!” she says, shoving the boy’s head down.

“S’not my fault, I didn’t know he’d get mad about it!” He whines.

“Do I look like I care Mr.Incompetent!?” She snaps. Daisuke has a newfound respect for this girl. And fear. 

“Fine, fine I’ll say sorry, just let go of my hair already!” He cries. She obliges, and the boy straightens himself up to look at Daisuke again.

“Sorry, I won’t call you uncle gramps anymore, I promise!” He says, but he’s looking less at Daisuke and more at the irritated girl glaring at him as he says it.

“So...what exactly are you two here for?” Daisuke asks, making no acknowledgement of the promise that he suspected would be broken in two seconds. 

“Well, I’m busy with stuff but I’d like to offer my boyfriend here as a sacrifice to help with your unpacking.” His probably-evil grandniece explains with a grin, gesturing to her apparent boyfriend who suddenly looked a lot more terrified than he’d been a second ago. Daisuke honestly doesn’t really want to spend any more time around this brat...but he does need help unpacking. And so he soon finds himself going through boxes and handing things to the kid and barking at him when he puts it in the exact opposite place of where he’d asked. 

Wormmon had initially been sad that he couldn’t help out, but now he's watching them with a look in his eyes resembling childlike glee as Daisuke grows more and more fed up with this dumb kid. Oh well, at least he's strong.

And it turns out that he's actually a pretty fast worker, so by noon they’ve gotten about half of the boxes unpacked. 

At that point, the boy practically begs for them to go and get lunch, and Daisuke is pretty hungry himself. So the three wander down to the kitchens together. All of the kid’s tiredness abruptly disappears and is replaced with an irrepressible urge to chatter.

The boy is legitimately fourteen, to Daisuke’s surprise. Apparently he’d only become immortal a few months ago. A genuine little kid. Huh. Daisuke had just figured...actually, he’s not really sure what he’d figured. He supposes he just hadn’t been expecting anyone here to look their actual age. Well, if he actually is a little kid, then he supposes that he shouldn’t be so hard on him. Now that he actually thinks about it, the kid sorta reminds Daisuke of a younger version of himself.

A much, much younger version of himself, but still.

He’s made of smiles and exhaustingly hyper and Daisuke wonders if this is how all his friends felt when back they were kids. Jeez, he really is turning into an old man, isn’t he? Luckily, his hyperactive companion doesn’t seem to make much notice of his geezer crisis.

The kid is a bundle of joy that wants to make lots of friends and has some vague but ambitious goal that Daisuke doesn’t really follow, but it sounds like something out of a manga. It also sounds like something Daisuke might’ve wanted to do at the boy’s age. He tells the kid that. 

“Well, you still could if you wanted to! It’s not like any of us are ever gonna get too old to do stuff.” The boy says. While that wasn’t really what Daisuke meant, it is sort of a good point. He could probably go run around the digital world again if he wanted to. Not that he’d want to try and explain to any partners that are left why he’s still alive. Or why he suddenly went back to looking twenty. He thinks Wormmon might still be suffering from the whiplash of that. Suddenly dropping the disguise spell had been a terrible idea. Oh right, food.

The boy points out a table for them to sit at and then runs off to go grab them something. They sit quietly at the table while they wait, but Wormmon definitely sees him staring at that group of kids playing soccer. 

It’s been forever, huh? 

Daisuke barely registers the return of their energetic companion until a hand is waved in front of his face. 

“Yo, earth to gramps! Daydreaming about the glory days?” He says with a dopey grin as he laughs at his own joke. Daisuke is torn between chewing the brat out and glaring at Wormmon for giggling. He opts for rolling his eyes as he starts on the plate of food that’s been set in front of him. Huh. It’s actually really good. Like, amazing good.The other two seem to think the same as they start scarfing down food. Daisuke has never seen Wormmon eat so fast and he’s honestly afraid that he’s going to choke.

“Hey by the way, is he like, your familiar or something?” The boy asks, gesturing at Wormmon with a mouth stuffed full of food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Is the only answer Daisuke gives. 

“See? You act like a grandpa.” The boy says, before actually swallowing the mouthful. Daisuke grumbles and rolls his eyes again.

“But still, answer the question gramps!” Oh right. Wormmon, familiar.

“Well for one thing, he doesn’t belong to me. And he’s not really a familiar, either.” Though he supposes that maybe Wormmon would legally be considered one? He’s not actually sure, he was never really good at that kind of stuff. Not that anyone paid any attention to digimon after all that stuff with mars happened. 

“Then why does he live with you and stuff?” The boy asks. Daisuke is almost surprised that Wormmon hasn’t said anything yet, but with how invested he is in the food Daisuke wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t heard anything the boy had said at all.

“It’s sort of a long story. But he’s basically like family to me, so…” Daisuke trails off, not really sure how to explain any further without going into details. Luckily, that answer was deemed good enough, and they continued to eat their food in relative silence. Until one of the kids playing soccer suddenly notices them and runs over.

“Hey, nice mister! Wanna come play soccer with us again?” The little girl ask, staring up hopefully at the grungy boy who most certainly did not deserve the title of‘mister’. His face lights up at the proposition.

“I’d love to kiddo!” He says, practically bouncing out of his seat. Daisuke thinks that the boy might’ve forgotten about him for a few seconds, until he suddenly stops and looks back over his shoulder.

“You wanna join us, gramps?” He asks. Daisuke doesn’t, really he doesn’t but Wormmon is giving him that _look_ and he knows he’ll be in for it if he says no, so he reluctantly nods and stands up to join them. 

It turns out that it doesn’t matter much that he hasn’t played in years, since none of the kids seem to have any idea how soccer works to begin with. They’re mostly just kicking the soccer ball around and, now, ganging up on their new, larger playmates. 

The boy eventually ditches him under the excuse that he has to go do something, leaving Daisuke alone to fend for himself against the hoard of hyperactive children. He’s going to die.

After what seems like an eternity, some older woman comes and calls the children inside. Daisuke feels like he’s about to collapse. If it was anatomically possible, Wormmon would probably be grinning from ear to ear. Daisuke doesn’t have the strength to glare at him. 

“Did you have fun?” Wormmon says, amusement plain as day in his voice. Daisuke just grumbles in response as they start walking back in the direction where he thinks their room might be.

When they finally find their way back, Daisuke practically collapses onto the bed. It’s not even dinner time yet but he feels like he could sleep for an eternity. Jesus, he’s not even that old. How’d he get so out of shape?

“By moping around and doing nothing for years and years, Daisuke.” Wormmon tells him. Why couldn’t Wormmon ever be wrong for once? Or just, y’know, just not point out the fact that Daisuke’s a dumbass. One of those two things. Daisuke is so wrapped up in this ridiculous train of thought that he doesn’t feel himself nodding off.

It takes him a while to come back to his senses when Wormmon wakes him up a while later. Wormmon made dinner. Great, he passed out like and idiot as usual and poor little Wormmon had to climb all over the place and make something for dinner somehow. God, he’s such a piece of shit. Why does Wormmon even put up with him? Really, Daisuke doesn’t deserve him. And now he’s spacing out and making the poor thing worry. 

He sits down at the table and digs into the amazing food that he doesn’t deserve to be eating and listens as Wormmon talks about how the lady had come by to thank him for playing with the kids and how he thinks that Daisuke should do it again. It’d be good for him.

“Once we have everything set up, I’ll think about it, ok?” Daisuke says. Wormmon looks disappointed but he nods in agreement nonetheless.

“But really do put some thought into it, ok? I really think it’d be good for you...so promise me you’ll really think about it.” He says quietly.

“Ok, I promise.” Daisuke tells him. He really does mean it too. Not because he actually thinks it’ll help, but just...Wormmon looks really sad. If it makes the little guy feel better, then it’s the least he can do. He’s the last family that Daisuke has, after all.

Well actually, maybe that’s not so true anymore, huh?

The End.


End file.
